Can US sustain Anbar success?
While Al Qaeda in Iraq has been largely driven out of Ramadi, the US is hoping to build on the gains by fixing basic services and mediating tribal hostilities.
from the May 4, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
The city's main market remains shuttered, and many buildings in the center are fully or partially destroyed. Sewerage water floods many streets, and heaps of garbage pile up at street corners. On a recent patrol of the city's Aziziyah neighborhood by Iraqi police and US Marines, youngsters were shoveling molding garbage that hadn't been picked up in six months onto a tractor. They are being paid $10 a day by the US military.
The population still sees the US side as the only credible authority.
Al Qaeda down, but not out
Many US and Iraqi officers say that many Al Qaeda members have regrouped farther north in the province around the Lake Thar-thar area and east in places like Al Karma, which borders Baghdad.
Al Qaeda did make its presence felt in Ramadi and surrounding areas last week with four car bombs targeting mainly the newly reconstituted police force. The deadliest attack was a suicide truck bomb against a police chief from the Bu-Nimr tribe that missed him but killed 25 of his kinsmen and wounded 40, according to a police officer. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement.
Now the group, which also benefited from and controlled fuel deliveries to the province, issued last week death threats to tanker drivers not to take part in convoys put together by local authorities, according to a US military source.
• Part 1 appeared in Thursday's Monitor.
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